


Braids

by syrupwit



Series: girl!anakin or whatever [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Unhealthy Relationships, whoops i almost literally wrote hairbraiding fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6011562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/pseuds/syrupwit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>You'll always be that sweet little girl I met on Tatooine.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill my own prompt at starwarskinkmeme: http://starwarskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/586.html?thread=529994#cmt529994 
> 
> I don't even know, okay. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Anakin says, "I thought about you every single day." 

Her eyes are clear blue. They haven't left Padmé since Anakin and Kenobi arrived. Padmé is used to being watched -- by crowds, security, political rivals, men in every corner of the galaxy, and now apparently by assassins -- but this feels different in a way she can't quite name. 

Anakin is tall now, taller than Padmé, almost taller than Kenobi. Weedy limbs poke out from the padawan's voluminous garb. Her braid is frizzing; Padmé's gaze keeps catching on the gold-lit strands escaping from it.

"You'll always be that sweet little girl I met on Tatooine," says Padmé.

Anakin's mouth twists, her eyebrows going down. Padmé joins the rest of the room in pretending not to notice, and they blessedly move on to other topics.

\--

It shouldn't disturb her, what with everything else going on. Padmé has been the target of many teenage crushes and the bearer of more than a few herself. They've all burned off into more appropriate forms of regard: the sisterly affection she feels for Sabé, the warmth and iron loyalty between her and Dormé. Anakin will accept that Padmé isn't the "angel" she remembers, and her interest will fade. And then, when this is over, perhaps they can even be friends.

(If only Anakin would stop staring...)

\--

"You don't like it when I watch you," says Anakin over the comm.

Padmé pulls the coverlet a little higher around herself. "I don't think anyone especially likes being watched."

"You know we have to," says Anakin. "For the mission."

The mission is to keep Padmé safe.

"Can you just turn the cam off?" Padmé tries. "I'll leave the comm on. You can still hear me."

"I can hear you even if I can't hear you. I can feel everything about you."

"So turn the cam off."

"Yes, Senator Amidala," says Anakin. 

Padmé slips into a sleep that doesn't last.

\--

On the transport to Naboo, Anakin sits stiff and quiet. Her hand rests on the handle of her lightsaber, fingers tracing the grooves, and she grips the handle tightly whenever anyone passes by.

"You'll like the lake country," Padmé offers. "Nice and quiet, lots of water. It's green everywhere. It's beautiful. Chancellor Palpatine --"

"Chancellor Palpatine says I'm the most promising Jedi he's ever known," Anakin interrupts.

"Oh?" Padmé tries to keep the surprise out of her voice. She knows that Palpatine likes to mentor young people, herself included, and he seems to harbor a certain fondness for Anakin, but he hasn't been in the habit of making such sweeping statements as far as she's known him.

"I didn't know the Chancellor was an expert on Jedi."

Anakin bristles. "I _am_ strong."

"I don't doubt it," Padmé placates. "I only meant --"

"You don't believe me." It seems Padmé has struck a nerve. "No one believes me. I may be young, but someday I'll be stronger than any of them. I'll be the greatest Jedi who ever lived!"

"Ani," says Padmé gently. Anakin is seething, muttering something under her breath about Kenobi. "I know you're strong. That's why you're here to protect me." 

It's true. Even Padmé, Force-insensitive as she is, felt the raw power crackling off Anakin when she swept in to slice up the kouhuns in her chamber. Padmé has worked with Jedi on and off practically since she was a child, and she's never met one quite like Anakin. But Anakin is...unstable, and so clearly immature, caught between her potential and the insecurity that restrains her. 

It must be lonely, Padmé thinks suddenly. Padmé is lonely sometimes -- more often that she'd like to admit, in fact -- but she always has peers around her, people she can relate to. It must be terribly, terribly lonely, to be different even among Jedi. She feels a flash of pity for Anakin alongside her discomfort.

\--

Once they arrive at Padmé's home, things change. Away from Coruscant, the Jedi Council, and her master, the absence of immediate danger knocks Anakin off-balance. Padmé suspects she's had little experience with unstructured time before.

They have dinner with Padmé's family. Anakin is virtually silent for the first half of the meal, answering questions with a terse "yes" or "no" and picking at her food. At first Padme thinks she's still in a sulk. Then Padmé's father asks a question that leads into a story, and Anakin starts talking, and Padmé realizes that Anakin is _terrified_. She seems torn between maintaining wooden good manners (to impress them? to keep from making a mistake?) and really getting into her story, and she can't make up her mind. Padmé watches Anakin dart quick glances between Pooja, Padmé's parents, and Padmé, trying to read their reactions behind the stonily polite masks, and feels amusement that flickers into sympathy.

"Are you still a pilot, Ani?" she interjects, once Ani (Anakin. Anakin) has trailed off into vague platitudes about the sanctity of the Republic and the boredom in the room has become all but palpable. Anakin nods, caught off guard, and Padmé launches into recounting the Boonta Eve podrace before she can give a verbal answer. It's been a long time since she's told the story; her family listens with mild interest. She doesn't remember everything, and makes sure to ask Anakin to fill in the details. 

She asks questions that generate other questions, details of past podraces and life on Tatooine that lead into stories about Anakin and Kenobi's work around the galaxy. The stories are colorful, most of them funny, and Anakin isn't a bad storyteller once she gets excited enough to forget about impressing anyone. The atmosphere lightens. There is a decent amount of laughter around the table. Anakin even manages to eat a little.

It's not enough to rescue dinner, but it is something, and Anakin is smiling when they take leave of Padmé's family for the evening.

"I didn't know you remembered that much," she says, after they've departed for Padmé's chambers.

"Of course I remember," says Padmé. She's not sure why she says it.

"Well, I'm glad." Anakin...blushes. She looks at her own feet when Padmé notices. It's at unsettlingly at odds with her previous boasts and fits of rage. When she raises her head again, flushed cheeks and wide eyes, it's even more disturbing. Padmé is suddenly aware of how close they're standing. Of, again, how Anakin almost but does not quite tower over her. 

"Good night," says Padmé, and turns away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I *think* I finally fixed the formatting issues, but. Let me know if there are any problems!

Out here in the sunlight and the lush country, Padmé can't hold on to her worries. Anakin can't seem to either. The outburst-prone child prodigy melts away, and a different girl emerges: still moody, awkward, desperate to prove herself, but sweet in a way that takes Padmé aback. Every day there is something new, something to do or see, and Padmé can feel the last of her cares slipping from her. It's been so long since she had time like this.

This is all during the day, of course. At night, Padmé can't sleep, and Anakin has nightmares. Padmé has heard Anakin crying out in her sleep. She knows Anakin must have heard her pacing, that she probably senses her agitation. But they don't discuss it, don't even mention it, and in the morning they start as if nothing has happened.

Anakin, it turns out, has opinions. A lot of opinions. These opinions concern many subjects, and one of those subjects is politics. Padmé has opinions of her own in this domain, but she will put them aside in order to educate Anakin. (As instrumental to the Republic's functioning as the Jedi are, the order appears to lack a strong civics curriculum.) At times, Padmé will think she's made headway -- Anakin will listen without interruption, reactions flickering across her face as Padmé explains the nuances of one Senate issue or another, the competing needs and relationships and the impediments to resolution -- but then Anakin will toss her head and say something like, “I can’t believe they’re all so _stupid_ ,” and they’re right back where they started. 

Anakin thinks there's one right way for things to be. She thinks she can _make_ them be that way, the way she can make a lightsaber or a piece of fruit or a sliver of empty space leap into her hand and bend according to her will. That is her world. Padmé lives in another.

\--

One night Padmé hears Anakin call for her mother, and instead of continuing down the hall to her rooms she knocks on Anakin's door. Anakin doesn't answer. It sounds like someone is crying. The door falls ajar at the brush of Padmé's hand, so she goes inside. 

"Anakin?"

The room is dark. Anakin is sitting up in bed. A slice of light from the uncovered window crosses her face.

"You were dreaming," says Padmé.

"I had a vision of my mother."

Two days ago, Padmé had a serious argument with her mother regarding the appropriate way to load the sonic dishwasher. "A vision?"

"She was in pain. She called out to me." Anakin's small hands clench in the bedclothes. "Obi-Wan says it's a trick. But it feels...real. I can feel her pain." 

"I'm sorry."

"I don't know why the Force would show me this," Anakin says.

Padmé is out of her depth. "I'm sorry," she says again. She sits on the edge of Anakin's bed. "What would help?"

"Having someone here. Having you here." Half Anakin's face is in shadow, but Padmé can see the side of her mouth quirk up. "That helps a lot." 

They sit for a moment. Anakin shifts slightly, the blanket around her slipping. Padmé glimpses the bare, night-lit curve of her back and realizes that she isn't wearing a shirt. Sudden heat pools in her abdomen, and she hates herself. 

For a second she wishes more than anything that Anakin were with someone who loved her -- really loved her, the way people should, as a daughter or a sister or a friend. Not someone who sees her as a tool or a weapon. Not someone who only loves the things she could be. Not someone who wants her the way Padmé apparently wants her, however that is or whatever it means. 

Anakin is watching her. She watches as Padmé reaches out and touches her shoulder. Her eyes widen as Padmé leans in to hug her (careful to keep the blanket between them), her body tensing then melting into relaxation. She's warm, and smells like sleep and sweat. She makes a tiny, aborted movement to follow when Padmé pulls away.

"Sleep better," says Padmé, keeping her tone light. "We can talk tomorrow." She feels Anakin's eyes burn on her back as she walks out of the room. 

\--

They don't talk. They have breakfast, and Padmé reads a report from her staff on Coruscant, and at some point Anakin goes off to confer with Obi-Wan by hologram. She returns from this conversation looking so surly that Padmé suggests they go out on the lake. This is a mistake. 

"You are my _bodyguard_!" Padmé shouts, voice barely able to carry over the roar of the speeder -- which, at this moment, may or may not be standing straight up, the bow aimed skyward. Anakin just cackles and goes even faster. 

Evening finds them sitting on the terrace. Anakin makes fun of Padmé for changing for dinner: "I swear, you have more clothes than all the younglings at the Temple combined."

Padmé sniffs, opens a bottle of emerald wine. "It's traditional dress, mostly. It's patriotic. And I wouldn't have had to change if _you_ hadn't gotten us _soaked_." On realizing what she's just said, she blanches, but Anakin doesn't seem to have noticed.

"Hey, I'm not complaining. You always look beautiful."

It seems safest to ignore this remark, so Padmé does. She tilts the bottle towards Anakin. "Would you like some?"

Anakin makes a face. "Ugh! No! I mean, uh. Thank you, it's not to my taste."

Padmé laughs and pours a glass for herself. "Can Jedi even drink wine?"

"Obi-Wan does. Usually because of me."

"I can believe that." Padmé makes a show of sipping from her glass, stares into the distance with an air of exaggerated cynicism.

" _Hey_ ," Anakin protests, but she's giggling.

Discussion turns from alcohol, to Kenobi's various and surprising predilections, to Nabooan history, to...hair. Anakin -- a girl whose hair, save the single long braid hanging behind her right ear, has been kept short for practical reasons all her life -- doesn't understand how Padmé's hair does what it does. Like, any of it, including the really simple stuff. Even the style Padmé has it in now (half up, half loose curls falling past her shoulders).

"Do you want me to show you?" Padmé is halfway through her third glass of wine. The sun has gone down, its embers hardly purple on the horizon.

"Uh. Okay?" 

Padmé leads Anakin to her room. There's a dresser with a mirror and a chair. Padmé has taken people here before. She tries not to think about them. She sits in the chair and beckons Anakin to stand behind her.

"Um. What should I…?" Anakin hovers.

"Just do what I say."

Padmé guides her in taking out the pins that hold her hair. Once Anakin gets going, her hands are sure, but her eyes dart nervously between Padmé's reflection and the back of Padmé's head.

"You're doing great," Padmé assures. 

Anakin stabs herself with a pin, curses. 

Padmé says, "Why don't we switch places? It might be easier to understand if it's your hair."

They maneuver awkwardly into place. Anakin is a little too tall for the chair. Her thick, sandy hair sticks out behind her ears. Padmé hides a smile, cards her fingers through it.

"You have lovely hair, Ani. You should grow it out. Will they let you?"

"Uh, maybe. When I pass the Trials." Anakin's eyes flutter shut for a moment, then open, darker than before. "That feels good."

"I'm glad."

Anakin brings her hand up to cover Padmé's, and Padmé realizes that she's been cupping the side of Anakin's face with one hand, resting her thumb in the dip below her lower lip. In the mirror, their eyes lock.

Anakin brings Padmé's knuckles to her mouth and kisses them.

"Your skin is so smooth." Anakin's tone is dreamy. Her mouth is open, breath hot against Padmé's fingers. Padmé wonders what would happen if she pushed them inside.

Padmé swallows, throat suddenly dry. The wine is spinning in her head. The wine. "Let go of me."

Anakin regards her with glazed eyes, nuzzles her hand.

"I said let me _go_ ," Padmé repeats, wrenching out of Anakin's grasp and breaking the spell. Her own face in the mirror is red, her hair disheveled. She looks angry. 

"Padmé --"

"Get out."

"Padmé, I --"

"You need to leave now. Please."

"Fine," says Anakin, rising from the chair. Padmé stands aside to let her leave, can't look at her. 

It takes a long time to fish the remaining pins out of her hair.


	3. Chapter 3

When Padmé goes to find her later, Anakin is out on the terrace in the dark. She doesn't look behind her as Padmé approaches. 

Padmé says, "I came to apologize."

"I wish you wouldn't. Unless..." Anakin turns toward Padmé, takes in her expression, and turns back to contemplating the black surface of the lake. Sulking. "Never mind."

Padmé steps closer to her. It's cool outside; she draws her wrap around her shoulders. "I'm sorry. The way I acted was wrong. I shouldn't have let you -- "

"Let me what?" Anakin whirls around. "Let me think you could love me?"

"Anakin," says Padmé helplessly.

"Just tell me, is it because I'm a Jedi? Because I'm a girl? Or do you simply find me ugly? Don't lie now, I've felt your thoughts -- "

"It's because you're a _child_ ," Padmé snaps, and wishes she hadn't. "I mean. You're very young, Anakin."

Anakin stares at her. "You're not that old."

"I'm old enough to know what I should and shouldn't do, regardless of anyone's feelings."

Anakin says, "Tell me your feelings." She's gotten closer, looming a little. Shadows gather in the hollow of her throat, the barely-visible valley between her breasts. 

Padmé shrinks from her warmth. "You should go inside. It's late."

"Padmé. Tell me."

"My feelings don't matter." 

"They matter to me." 

Padmé whispers, "I can't steal from your future like this," but Anakin is saying, "Padmé, Padmé," and Padmé's hands are in her hair and her hips are against her hips and her mouth is on her mouth before she can say much else.

\--

If Padmé is concerned about the fallout the next morning, she shouldn't be. Anakin wakes from another vision of her mother with deadened, red-rimmed eyes, a scratchy voice, and the sort of dogged conviction that probably haunts both Kenobi's days and nights -- though, in this situation, it isn't particularly funny anymore.

They go to Tatooine.

\--

They find the farm. It's too late.

Anakin's mother dies.

\--

Padmé owns three spaceships, an apartment suite in an expensive area of Coruscant's Senate District, a secret apartment suite in a less expensive area of Coruscant's Senate District, and shares in an ancestral estate that includes a private beach. She has enough fine art to fill a gallery; enough clothing, jewelry, costumery, cosmetics, and miscellaneous personal care items to support a traditional Nabooan theater troupe; and enough armor and weaponry to comfortably outfit a small mercenary team. When she was fourteen, she was elected ruler of a planet. She is directly responsible for the lives of a dozen people, and indirectly responsible for the well-being of billions more. And yet, still, crouched on the Lars' kitchen floor with a mass murderer crying in her arms, she feels that she has had nothing of her own.

"I killed them all," Anakin sobs, and Padmé thinks, _Let me have her._

_Please. Let me keep her._

_There's nothing else that I want._

Anakin's tears are wet on her shirt, hot but quickly cooling. Somewhere in the house a machine is humming. Padmé smells blood.

\--

In the moments just before they enter the arena on Geonosis, Padmé considers that she's going to die. It's likely they were doomed from the first time they met, now that she thinks about it, but she hadn't thought it would end like this. There are issues unresolved between them. There are things Padmé wants Anakin to know.

Padmé made her choice on Tatooine, but Anakin doesn't understand that. She needs to hear the words. So, in a pocket of quiet, Padmé says them. 

Anakin doesn't believe her.

"You mean like a sister," she says, shoulders hunched, resigned, petulant as a child even as they're being escorted to their public and violent deaths. Padmé almost smiles in spite of herself.

"No," says Padmé. "Not like a sister at all."

She opens everything she's feeling -- the ugly parts and the good parts, the selfish cravings Anakin will see as love and the measured cautions she'll fear and misinterpret -- and tries to beam it at Anakin, looks her in the eye. She's never really gotten how the mind-reading works, despite years of working with and around Jedi. But Anakin seems to receive the message, or at least part of it. Enough for now, perhaps.

Anakin's lips part, but she doesn't say anything.

The gate lifts -- Kenobi and Anakin stiffen, Padmé squares her shoulders -- and they're marched into the brightness, before the roaring crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LONG LAST................
> 
> If I can make it through the Clone Wars cartoon, I'm going to at least try to write a longer plottier post-AotC fic set in this universe with lots of Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. But we'll see. No promises.


End file.
